


It's 1am, and You are Found

by Carolinathousandcities, thefrankydoyles



Series: 1am [1]
Category: Wentworth (TV)
Genre: F/F, Second POV
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-07-08
Updated: 2018-07-08
Packaged: 2019-06-07 06:35:26
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,773
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15213308
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Carolinathousandcities/pseuds/Carolinathousandcities, https://archiveofourown.org/users/thefrankydoyles/pseuds/thefrankydoyles
Summary: You slide in behind her, feel her whimpers echo and reverberate through all your empty spaces. She smiles against your chest like it is the only place she has ever wanted to be.6x03.





	It's 1am, and You are Found

You’re rushing.

Rushing up the stairs with your house keys gripped between trembling fingers.

_I love you…and I’ll be back._

That’s what she’d said. Yelled it across the street like eight metres of tar was the only thing keeping the two of you apart. Yelled it like she wasn’t on the run. Like she didn’t just escape prison. Like there isn’t two months’ worth of scarred tissue between you.

She escaped prison and she ran to you, and even while the world crumbled she spread her arms wide and she smiled. You saw her.

_Her._

The woman you fell in love with. The one with hope and grit, love and fight.

When the wonder faded you drove home. You don’t remember stopping for any lights. Maybe you did. Maybe you ran them all. Maybe you don’t give a fuck.

So you’re rushing.

Rushing to get to the house and…what? Turn on the news? Fling the back door open? _Try and find her?_ You don’t even know.

You don’t make it past the stairs. Key in hand, in the dark, you misplace the toe of your boot, trip up the flight and land with your boot heel on an awful angle; bones inside the joint grinding together, tendons and ligaments stretching, tearing.

‘Oh, **_fuck_** ,’ you breathe, grabbing one of the posts on the verandah and pressing your forehead against it, waiting for the initial vicious bite of pain to fade.

It doesn’t.

Eyes screwed shut, hands shaking in shock you pull your other boot off, pull yourself up with trembling arms and hop to the door, hissing every time your right leg moves.

You have injured ankles before. You know this one is…bad.

You also know that you are not willing to go to the hospital.

Not tonight.

Because…what if she comes and you’re not here?

You turn the hallway light on, try not to wince and ignore the tears that spring involuntarily to your eyes. You tip two Panadol down your throat, choke some water down after them, grab some frozen peas out of the fridge and hobble to the table.

There’s no one around to hear the, ‘Oh fucking hell,’ that slips out of your mouth as you pull the boot off your right ankle. You don’t look at it on purpose. Don’t want to see the swelling you know has started.

You are sitting in the dark anyway, the light switch too far away to reach.

Sitting in the shadows, in physical pain of an intensity you have not felt in a long time, with a bag of peas on your ankle you smile. Smile sardonically and nearly laugh with tears in your eyes. You lean forwards and put your head in one hand, breath hitching in your throat.

You can live with one more crack for a night right?

A physical one?

You are already made of fault lines and fissures because of her.

* * *

 

She comes an afternoon two days later. You don’t hear her walk in the back door. You are too busy scanning the news for anything and everything; even a hint of her.

But she comes, and she pulls you into her like she’s never left. Like she’s coming back. And you could swear, in that moment, clinging to her, even your insides crave her, a feeling behind your stomach pulling it forwards. Even your internal organs want to be closer to her.

You yell a little bit, because you are terrified, and then she smiles.

‘You woulda tried to talk me out of it.’

And how can you be so broken and so whole all at once?

And you don’t have enough time. There is never enough time, because when you get rid of the police, lies dripping from your tongue with ease…she is gone.

She is gone.

And the very next time you hear from her, her voice crackles with static and is laced with a haze and a brokenness you barely recognise.

You have never driven to a service station so fast in all your life.

And there she is.

On the floor.

The sink and mirror and door and toilet are covered in her blood and your throat closes over like the top of a drawstring purse.

The colour has leeched from her face and her head lolls in a way that makes your brain shoot off into 100 different avenues of pure panic.

But you pull it together. Because it’s her. Because you have to. 

You bend down, fingers trembling, and your eyes never leave her face. Blood is trickling down her arm and she smiles, asks how your leg is. Your entire body is numb.

You pull her up, pull her up and support her even though you are far from whole yourself. The whimper of pain she lets out pulls your drawstring throat even tighter. And even though your voice shakes, and the thought makes bile creep up the back of your throat…it is good to have the solid weight of her in your arms.

You take her where she wants to go. Watching her in your rear-view mirror like she might just disappear; fade away to nothing right before your eyes. And you whisper to her softly, ‘Stay with me, baby, _stay_.’

You see it. The tiny movement of her good arm, fingers opening, reaching for you slightly all the way from the back seat and something snaps inside your sternum and reverberates down into your stomach.

Right here and now you know. Know unequivocally and without a doubt that you will do whatever it takes. With the woman you love bleeding out in your back seat, your entire future is decided.

Her. Her. It will always be her.

So, when you get her settled, and when you have managed to make your voice stop cracking and breaking, called her honey more times than you can count, you try and get her an ambulance.

She shakes her head, lips pursed firmly the same way you’ve seen so many times before, and she says, ‘I’d rather die than go back inside.’

And her. Her. It will always be her. If she wants to die in your arms…oh jesus fucking christ…you have to let her.

She tries to say goodbye too. Shakes her head and tries to smile in the way that first won you over… but only half her mouth works.

‘I’ve had the best time with you, Gidge.’

You wonder how you have managed to live so long with your heart beating outside of your chest; in _her_. And this cannot be the end. It can’t. Not like this.

‘Don’t you dare. Don’t you dare give up on me.’

And your voice lowers, trails off on the last three words of that sentence because you know exactly what you are asking her to do. You are asking her to live. You are asking her to live for **you** in exactly the same way that you have been living for her; with everything.

She smiles. You are about to lose her. She may be about to die and all she wants is you.

‘Just stay with me.’

And it will always be her. So you slide in behind her, feel her whimpers echo and reverberate through all your empty spaces. You hold her, cradle her against your chest, support as much of her as you can and feel her stuttering breath across your skin.

You have an empty chasm where your heart should be and your drawstring throat is filled with stones.

She smiles against your chest like it is the only place she has ever wanted to be.

* * *

 

_Getbacktohergetbacktohergetbacktoher_ repeats like a mantra inside your head, thrumming inside your veins.

You have left her asleep. Slid out from where she’d nodded off against your chest and come home to get your pain medication because every time she winces a piece of you slides into a void. You think you have done a passable job of not letting her see how much her pain is killing you.

Your movements are laced with a fear that makes the back of your throat close over. The fear that when you get back…she might not be breathing.

You catch your own eyes in the mirror as you hurry past, fingers trembling. You make eye contact with yourself and for a second…for a second you don’t recognise the woman you see.

Your hair is falling all over the place and your eyes are a little wild and if you had time you might vomit.

But there’s no time.

The woman whose blood coats your hands, the woman you love, is dying. She is dying right before your eyes.

If you had time you would press your fingers against your lips hard, stare at yourself, and wonder when loving her, loving her so hard, turned into an all-consuming force. A need. A complete disregard for your own life.

‘Aiding a fugitive. At least we’d be in together.’ You’d said.

The ease with which those words slid off your tongue had made your chest simultaneously tighten and release. Tighten because… _how did it get to this?_ Release because...they are the truth.

You will go down with her.

If it comes to it, you will go down _for_ her.

Hot girl. Hot car.

Because maybe this is the sunset. Maybe the two of you will drive into the fucking sun and explode in flames. Go down in a blaze of glory.

Not that you want glory.

Glory is the farthest thing from your mind. At the end of the day, you just want her lips on yours. Forever.

Yes. If you had time you would wonder when simple love turned into a carelessness with yourself that was previously uncomprehended.

How the inmate with tattoos and a razor for a tongue has consumed you. Made a life without her a life not worth living.

You do not have time.

She needs you. And you will give her everything you have, and then you will give her more.

* * *

 

When you hear her calling for you in the dark before you’ve even slipped through the train carriage door…you ache. With every cell in your body.

Her voice is so small when she asks where you went that you _know_ she has thought you’d left her. She falls into you, trembling, and your hands are soft, calm, soothing, but resolve is thick and hard like cement inside you; you will never leave.

You can feel her breath in your hair, on your neck. You could stay like this forever. In an empty train carriage, in the middle of nowhere, holding her.

You do not have forever.

You make her sit back and start to clean her up gently, antiseptic wipes removing the dried blood from her skin. You’d washed your hands while you were home but your fingers get stained again as you wipe the blood from her. It makes you feel a tiny bit better, like maybe you are taking some of her pain.

She tilts her head and whispers that you are beautiful. Asks if you want to know something.

You don’t trust your words. All you can muster is an affirmative, ‘Mmmm.’

She says that once…she hated you, that once she thought you were a nosy cow.

And oh darling. Darling. Darling.

Why does this feel like goodbye again?

But you will play along. Play remember when and reminisce while her clock runs out because you want her to know it all. Want to give her a chance to say it back to you.

You knead her hand in yours like you can convey your conviction tactilely.

‘You know the very first time I fell in love with you?’

You whisper it. Whisper it into the space between you.

‘Paint me a picture.’

And she knows exactly what you are talking about.

‘Hot girl.’

‘Hot car.’

In that moment, in the dark in a deserted train yard, her time running out, everything the two of you have been, everything you _could_ be, is real. The past floats around you both like dust motes dancing in the air, illuminated by the electric light from outside.

_I wanna walk through those gates, all this place, and everyone in it is just a smoking pile of ashes. And I wanna be picked up by a hot girl, in a hot car, and driven off into the sunset. Anger and hope that’s you all over. You’re a good person, Franky. So what, you’re in love with me? Not here, not yet. Hey, spunky. I had to see her, I love her. I just wanna hold ya. All I think, day and night, is you. I fucking love you._

_I fucking love you too._

She tilts her head as the past fades, smiles at you like you are everything she has ever fucking dreamed of having and never thought she’d get.

So you tell her. You tell her how it is. How it will always be.

‘No matter what, we’re in this together.’

And she closes her eyes as you press your lips against her forehead and her smile. Her smile looks like she’s feeling the sun on her face for the first time in years.

Maybe she is. Maybe her sun is you.

You press you lips against hers and you hold her head and for a _second_ you have it all. This is where the two of you were made after all. In the cracks and crevasses.

* * *

 

When Vera finds you, Iman’s possessions in hand, you find yourself begging. She says you’ll go to prison.

You say you don’t care.

You mean it.

The tears fall anyway, because for a moment, in the place it all began, you understand that it is likely to finish here as well. With you on the opposite side of the bars to where you began.

Your mouth rings true.

_‘_ I can **not** turn my back on her.’

And oh, Vera, she _is_ your friend. She is. Some of your tears are for her.

‘I cannot let you cross this line.’

 She is trying so hard to get you to change tracks. But you’ve been on this course since the day Franky stepped inside this prison for the second time.

‘I’ve crossed it, Vera. I’ve fucking crossed it.’

Your voice breaks as you speak, you’ve never sounded so hysterical in all your life.

And away from Franky. Away from the blood and her sad eyes drinking you in, and whispered confessions on borrowed time. Away from _her_ you can see even more clearly that you are on a collision course. One that will probably destroy you in one way or another.

And still all you want to do is get back to her.

‘Just go.’

You’ve hurt Vera, your friend, your friend who is trying to save you. But you will fix this later if you can.

Keys gripped firmly in hand you’ll take them, take them to Franky like salvation, like a possible life line.

So when the lights start to flash and the sirens start to blare and you are hopping out of your car, hands held in the air…you feel salvation slip through your finger tips and pool at your feet. You feel destruction start to weigh in.

You say nothing. You give them nothing. Absolutely nothing.

They try and tempt you.

Try and bargain your freedom for hers.

Like you could ever be free without her.

They paint it as your choice. One you get to make right now. Give her up and walk. Say nothing and get charged.

Two years ago you made a choice. You made a choice to help an angry girl throwing books in a prison library.

You made the decision to choose her every day after that. You will choose her now, and every day to come. You will choose her as easily as breathing.

Hot girl.

Hot car.

A tear slides down your cheek but you picture a sunset in your mind. You picture a tatted up girl with a giant grin striding out the gates of a prison. You picture a dying woman caressing your face and pressing her lips to yours like as long as she has you it might be okay that she doesn’t have a tomorrow.

You picture Franky Doyle.

‘It’s no choice.’

The words are branded into the inside of your trachea but they don’t burn you. You know in your marrow that they are true.

You will go down for her.

‘You’ll have to charge me.’

**Author's Note:**

> Bridget Westfall was more ride or die than I could've ever imagined in the last ep. I've got a lot of feelings about it. 
> 
> Jos maayyyy follow this up with a Franky pov at some point. Thanks for reading everyyyone!


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